TheGamer

Not that I'm advising a crash-diet or anything, but you could always try to substitute out some shakes for meals. If regaining is going to put your approval in jeopardy, then I'd put it off, but you can always talk to your NUT about it. Call them, get the answers you need.

One thing to keep in mind is that VSG is a relatively new procedure, medically speaking. My personal example - I had my first post op appointment with my GP to check up on my high blood pressure and neither HE or his nurse had even HEARD of the procedure! One of the reasons to choose VSG is because you can get your full nutrition much easier than RNY or more extreme surgeries. I think if you spend your time around the board you'll find very few people who regret having VSG done.

For me the magic number on both counts was two weeks. My surgeon wanted me up and moving around every 2-4 hours to help avoid blood clots. They also put me on Lovenox shots (to prevent blood clots) for 10 days after I was released from the hospital. Leaks can happen after two weeks, but my understanding is that it's far less likely.

You should have a plan that was given to you. My surgeon required that I get 70 grams of Protein in a day. I could have as few as 3 shakes or as many as 5, but my total caloric intake was under 1000 calories. Check your particular plan requirements to see what they say. broth I'd drink hot, because the idea of cold broth just sounds gross. Don't forget about tea, too. Tea is amazing.

Personally? Nah. I had a ton of problems finding things I could hold down after surgery, so I got permission to bump up my schedule. After a while, I've started to let my body tell me what does and doesn't work just so I can get in the nutrition I'm supposed to. Trust me, if your body doesn't like what you just did, you *will* know! Butter's got a good point, too. Use your brain. I don't think mushy canned veggie matter will do anything, though. That's just me.

It's difficult, but you can do it. Remember, none of us would be in a place where we'd be taking this step if we didn't all really, REALLY love food, so everyone here can sympathize and understand.

It depends on what your surgeon says, honestly. Talk with them (or the team if you're going to a center) and let them know what your challenges are and ask for help. That's what they're there for. Mine had a couple different plans depending on your starting BMI. You were either on shakes and a meal or all shakes and veggies once a day. Yes, it's easier once the stomach is smaller, but post-sleeve (at least mine) came with a whole lot of things I have to follow, too. It's not like VSG was a magic wand for not having to try any more. You can get sleeved and still sabotage yourself out of success. My big incentive was the knowlege that if I screwed up my pre-op diet, the only person I could blame for not getting the surgery was me. They're not joking about that whole "call off the surgery if it's not safe to perform" thing and I thought that would just be too much humiliation if my surgery was called on account of me not being able to keep foods out of my mouth for two weeks.

Yeah, it's the eating part that's troublesome. I decided to up my caloric intake to try and get out of my stall and even with my best efforts, I've not even managed 800 calories and I feel like I've done nothing *but* eat all day. Granted, that's about 200 calories more than usual, but it's nowhere near approaching a normal day of calories.

I'm in the same boat. All week I've been stalled. I lost about 47 pounds in a month (2 weeks pre-vsg and two weeks post), then BOOM, nada for a week. I'm pretty sure it's because my body's going crazy about a lack of calories considering I'm running about a 2,000 calorie defecit per day. When you have restricted caloric intake for a little while, the body loses weight like crazy. Then (thanks, ancestors!) it goes "OSHI... I'M STARVING!" and your metabolism drops and your body goes in to protection mode. There's also replenishing glycogen (short term energy) that requires 8 lbs of Water to go with it. Stick with what you're supposed to do, but also try to get in some exercise (I was the worst at this until I felt good enough to walk). Other tactics can be eating every couple hours to help your body remember it's not starving and upping your caloric intake to trick the body in to reupping the metabolism. I'm trying the latter two today, though man, does eating make me sick XP

If you have a recliner, try sleeping in that. I slept in mine for 2 weeks after surgery. Once I felt good enough to lay down I put a king size pillow next to me and used that to support my stomach while I slept (I'm a side/tummy sleeper).

So I'm in the middle of my first stall. My body and I are in this fight where it wants to do one thing, I want it to do something else, and I am feeling like a newbie just out of the starting zone that stumbled in to end game content. I've always been the type of gamer that loved doing the impossible. Elite mob? No problem. Group of mobs three levels higher? Easy. Explore a zone ten levels too high? I'll run right through it! I'm that person that takes the phrase "You can't do that" as a challenge, not a warning. I'll throw myself at something over and over until I do it or die trying. This has been no different. I'm taking comfort in plans and spreadsheets. I've done the math to show where I'll be next month, and the month after, and the month after that. I've got the next six months of my life planned out. I'm bordering on a near-fanatical, slightly neurotic desire to catalog every little thing. Every drink, every bite of food, every pill. Leave nothing unaccounted for, ever. I'm sure in some regard that this is entirely unhealthy. You see, like most games, this one has an end, too. Everyone can tell me (and I can tell myself) all the platitudes that I've learned from start to finish - marathon, not race, journey, not sprint, lifestyle not diet... but I don't care. This is my end game boss and I'm a one-person forty man raid group. I don't care how many times I wipe, how high my repair bill gets, how much screaming and yelling I have to do to get my group in to shape, this b***h is going down and going down hard. Failure is not an option.

Remember that there's more than one kind of loss. If you've been exercising and building muscle, you're swapping out something bad for something good. I've learned that even if the scale isn't moving (and this week it really isn't, grr) I can still show inches lost.

I really started thinking it wasn't so bad when the weight started dropping off I started my liquid diet on a weekend so I had a few days to adjust before I had to go out and interact with people, but I never really even had a a carb crash like I did on SBD.

Well, the nice thing about post surgery was that the LAST thing I wanted was anything food related, so liquids were just fine by me. The two week shake pre-op wasn't so bad. You basically just need to find lots of ways to dress them up so that you're not just having these plain shakes all the time. I would have a little steamed broccoli every day to break up the boredom of shakes. Even then, by the end of two weeks you're really sick of them XP

There are a lot of variables that go in to it. My surgeon required anyone over a certain BMI to go full liquid for 2 weeks, others just one week, and then everyone was required to do the clear liquid the day before surgery thing. I've read a lot of people that said they didn't do it, but I suppose it depends on weight, surgeon's preference, etc. It's not like doing a two week liquid diet is going to do you any harm, so hey, do it if you want!

While I don't travel for a living, one of my goals has been to make everything as easy as possible (I'm seriously lazy). Once you're far enough along you can take advantage of foods like jerky, cheese, nuts and other things for snacks. Since I had to make my shakes at work every day, I bought two things: a blender ball bottle and a small "smoothie" blender with travel cups. I would put a serving's worth of protein powder in an extra small ziploc container or bag and bring along any extras (fruit, extract) with me. As long as you can access water (ice, too!) and a power outlet you're in business. If you're in a rush, milk and protein powder in the blender bottle and you're good to go.

Remember that one of your biggest challenges will be mental hunger, not physical. A lot of us are coming to this with a history of eating whatever we want, whenever we want, and justifying it. Try to figure out what it is about that food that you're craving. Maybe it's got something else your body wants. I've found that keeping food journal (for the first time ever) helps keep me in line. Everything I eat gets written down, no matter if it's just one thing. Somehow, knowing that I would have to write down "ate cheesecake" or "ate cupcake" and knowing that I just blew most of, if not all of, a day's worth of calories is just no longer worth it. If you just want something to chew on, try Jerky or other high Protein Snacks. Failing that, I love veggies (though I've not really eaten any since surgery yet >.>), especially steamed broccoli.

Yeah, I've never been told no fruit. Most of my recipes actually tell me to put (limited) amounts in. I think that as long as I'm not going over 19g of carbs in a serving, I'm in the clear. It was a lifesaver when I couldn't keep anything down.

A pound a day is really good results, I think. I had my sleeve about the same time and I'm seeing similar weight loss. Keep trying foods to find what works for you. I know I was on the phone to my doctor's office just after surgery because the clear liquid diet was not working for me. I couldn't stand the taste of clear protein drinks at all, so I was just not eating. They gave me clearance to go ahead and move my diet up because nutrition was more important than a schedule. There are plenty of things out there (Better than Boullion is probably the best tasting broth I've ever had) that do taste delicious. If you think your body wants it, try a little and see how you feel. If you don't have some unflavored protein powder, get some. You can put it in to foods you find that you like (just don't cook with it, I made that mistake once and ew >.<). Get creative. I know for a while I was putting sriracha in tiny amounts of food because I LOVE spicy things and it was just enough to make it taste delicious

One combo that I really like is vanilla shake + 1/2 c. of pineapple + coconut flavoring. It's not heavy on the protein, but it is really delicious. Another is to brew celestial seasonings blueberry tea, let it cool, and use that as the water in my vanilla + frozen blueberry shake. It's vividly purple and tastes great.

One of the things that I've started doing to help limit myself is portioning out *everything* in to smaller containers the instant I open it. So that way, even if I do go off track, I'm limiting the damage to an actual portion of the thing, not just mindlessly eating. Another thing that's helped has been keeping a log on FitDay of every single thing that I eat. If I'm going to eat, I log it. You'd be amazed how much just writing it down helps to stop my instinct to snack when I see the numbers climbing up and I know that it will interfere in my ability to lose weight. If it's something you're really wanting all the time, there's a possiblity there's something in it that your body wants, and for a reason. So, allow for it in your diet. After all, that's one of the reasons I chose a sleeve - no restrictions on what I could have. If you're wanting a late night snack, have one, but plan for it in your day

Yep, don't worry about it, just like others have said. I am in my 3rd week out and just had my first plateau, too. One thing that will help is to take body measurements. You should continue to lose fat even if you're not losing weight, so the difference will show up in your body

My post op diet plan was ungodly restrictive. One week clear liquid, one week thin soups... I couldn't take it. I wasn't getting enough liquid or enough protein and so I basically just started eating smart. I can't really handle meat yet (though I'm really wanting some salmon!) but I've been able to handle low fat jerky just fine. As long as I watch my carbs and fat and make sure I take my vitamins and get my protein, I'm listening to my body first.

They are generally high carb, but... Campbells makes this tomato bisque with bacon that was amazing post-op. I ate 3 oz at a time mixed with some Fage 0% since it tastes like sour cream, oh was it good.

I lost 30 pounds prior to surgery. I was in the hospital for 2 days and came out 15 pounds heavier than I went in. It took me about a week or so to get that weight off. It was all the fluids and such I got in the hospital that did it.